We consider the decision problem for cases of first-order temporal logic with function symbols and without equality. The monadic monodic fragment with flexible functions can be decided with EXPSPACE-complete complexity. A single rigid function is sufficient to make the logic not recursively enumerable. However, the monadic monodic fragment with rigid functions, where no two distinct terms have variables bound by the same quantifier, is decidable and EXPSPACE-complete.

We define the logic FOTLT(n), to be a monadic monodic fragment of first-order linear temporal logic, with 2n propositions representing the read and write steps of n two-step concurrent database transactions and a time-dependent predicate representing queries giving the sets of data items accessed by those read and write steps at given points in time. The models of FOTLT(n) contain interleaved sequences of the steps of infinitely many occurrences of the n transactions accessing unlimited data over time. A property of (...) serializability is specified for FOTLT(n) formulae. We show that the serializability problem for FOTLT(n) formulae is decidable. (shrink)

Explores the nature and types of mystical experience and discusses the value of mysticism for humanity.

For the first English edition of his distinguished study, Weisheit und Wissenschaft: Studien zu Pythagoras, Philoloas und Platon, Mr. Burkert has extensively ...

The goal of this article is to break down the dimensions of consciousness, attempt to reverse engineer their evolutionary function, and make sense of the origins of consciousness by breaking off those dimensions that are more likely to have arisen later. A Darwinian approach will allow us to revise the philosopher’s concept of consciousness away from a single “thing,” an all-or-nothing quality, and towards a concept of phenomenological complexity that arose out of simple valenced states. Finally, I will offer support (...) for an evaluation-first view of consciousness by drawing on recent work in experimental philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Unlike any other field, the science of morality has drawn attention from an extraordinarily diverse set of disciplines. An interdisciplinary research program has formed in which economists, biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and even philosophers have been eager to provide answers to puzzling questions raised by the existence of human morality. Models and simulations, for a variety of reasons, have played various important roles in this endeavor. Their use, however, has sometimes been deemed as useless, trivial and inadequate. The role of models (...) in the science of morality has been vastly underappreciated. This omission shall be remedied here, offering a much more positive picture on the contributions modelers made to our understanding of morality. (shrink)

Once upon a time scholars assumed that the knowing subject in the disciplines is transparent, disincorporated from the known and untouched by the geo-political configuration of the world in which people are racially ranked and regions are racially configured. From a detached and neutral point of observation (that Colombian philosopher Santiago Castro-Gómez describes as the hubris of the zero point ), the knowing subject maps the world and its problems, classifies people and projects into what is good for them. Today (...) that assumption is no longer tenable, although there are still many believers. At stake is indeed the question of racism and epistemology. And once upon a time scholars assumed that if you ‘come’ from Latin America you have to ‘talk about’ Latin America; that in such a case you have to be a token of your culture. Such expectation will not arise if the author ‘comes’ from Germany, France, England or the US. As we know: the first world has knowledge, the third world has culture; Native Americans have wisdom, Anglo Americans have science. The need for political and epistemic de-linking here comes to the fore, as well as decolonializing and decolonial knowledges, necessary steps for imagining and building democratic, just, and nonimperial/colonial societies. (shrink)

Phillips et al. make a compelling case for a reversal in the current paradigm in “other minds” research by considering the representation of other people's knowledge more basic than the attribution of belief. Unfortunately, they only discuss primates. In this commentary, I argue that the representation of others' knowledge is an evolutionary ancient trait, first appearing during the Cambrian explosion.

In a quest for honesty, Kaufmann argues against organized religion and presents his own views on the meaning of faith, morality, theology, suffering, and death.

Husserl's theory of perception is remarkable in several respects. For one thing, Husserl rigorously distinguishes the parts and properties of the act of consciousness - its content -from the parts and properties of the object perceived. Second, Husserl's repeated insistence that perceptual consciousness places its subject in touch with the perceived object itself, rather than some representation that does duty for it, vindicates the commonsensical and phenomenologically grounded belief that when a thing appears to us, it is precisely that thing, (...) rather than some other thing (its 'appearance'), that we perceive. Third, his distinction between empty and intuitive acts, and his descriptions of their complex interplay in perceptual consciousness, provides a way of making sense of the fact that an object can be perceived even when some of its parts and properties are not. Finally, his theory of perceptual acts as constituents of higher-order acts of fulfilment provides one of the few detailed accounts in the philosophical literature of how a perceptual experience can transform a mere thought into knowledge, despite the fact that the relation between perception and belief is not a logical or inferential one. Because Husserl's theory of perception is a serious candidate for truth, it is also a serious candidate for philosophical criticism. As such, in what follows I will treat it as a live force to be reckoned with rather than a historical curiosity. (shrink)

The last several years have seen vibrant debates among policymakers and scholars on whether to craft new human rights (or novel interpretations of existing ones) around neurotechnologies. These con...

There are two foundational, but not fully developed, ideas in paraconsistency, namely, the duality between paraconsistent and intuitionistic paradigms, and the introduction of logical operators that express metalogical notions in the object language. The aim of this paper is to show how these two ideas can be adequately accomplished by the logics of formal inconsistency and by the logics of formal undeterminedness. LFIs recover the validity of the principle of explosion in a paraconsistent scenario, while LFUs recover the validity of (...) the principle of excluded middle in a paracomplete scenario. We introduce definitions of duality between inference rules and connectives that allow comparing rules and connectives that belong to different logics. Two formal systems are studied, the logics mbC and mbD, that display the duality between paraconsistency and paracompleteness as a duality between inference rules added to a common core—in the case studied here, this common core is classical positive propositional logic. The logics mbC and mbD are equipped with recovery operators that restore classical logic for, respectively, consistent and determined propositions. These two logics are then combined obtaining a pair of LFI and undeterminedness, namely, mbCD and mbCDE. The logic mbCDE exhibits some nice duality properties. Besides, it is simultaneously paraconsistent and paracomplete, and able to recover the principles of excluded middle and explosion one at a time. The last sections offer an algebraic account for such logics by adapting the swap structures semantics framework of the LFIs the LFUs. This semantics highlights some subtle aspects of these logics, and allows us to prove decidability by means of finite nondeterministic matrices. (shrink)

In their thoughtful article, Malm and Navin (2020) raise concerns about a potentially unjust generational welfare tradeoff between children and adults when it comes to chicken pox. We share their c...

This essay offers some reflections on Samir Okasha’s new monograph Agents and Goals in Evolution, his style of doing philosophy, and the broader philosophy of nature project of trying to make sense of agency and rationality as natural phenomena.

This paper is an attempt to connect the Brazilian Paulo Freire’s well known educational thinking with the “philosophy for children” movement. It considers the relationship between the creator of philosophy for children, Matthew Lipman and Freire through different attempts to establish a relationship between these two educators. The paper shows that the relationship between them is not as close as many supporters of P4C have claimed, especially in Latin America. It also considers the context of Educational Policies in our time (...) and why Freire’s understanding of the politics of education makes it impossible to be Freirean and at the same time be neutral or favorable to the actual status quo. Finally, after presenting Lipman’s understanding of the relationship between philosophy, education and democracy and their connection to capitalism, it proposes ways to begin the political path of philosophizing with children inspired by Paulo Freire’s educational thinking. As a result, a more politically committed path to doing philosophy with children is offered. (shrink)

We present select examples of how visual phenomena can serve as tools to uncoverbrain mechanisms. Specifically, receptive field organization is proposed as a Gestalt-like neural mechanism of perceptual organization. Appropriate phenomena, such as brightness and orientation contrast, subjective contours, filling-in, and aperture-viewed motion, allow for a quantitative comparison between receptive fields and their psychophysical counterparts, perceptive fields. Phenomenology might thus be extended from the study of perceptual qualities to their transphenomenal substrates, including memory functions. In conclusion, classic issues of Gestalt (...) psychology can now be related to modern. (shrink)

Mental causation, our mind's ability to causally affect the course of the world, is part and parcel of our ‘manifest image’ of the world. That there is mental causation is denied by virtually no one. How there can be such a thing as mental causation, however, is far from obvious. In recent years, discussions about the problem of mental causation have focused on Jaegwon Kim's so-called Causal Exclusion Argument, according to which mental events are ‘screened off’ or ‘preempted’ by physical (...) events unless mental causation is a genuine case of overdetermination or mental properties are straightforwardly reducible to physical properties. (shrink)

Huemer [33] argues against the killing of animals. I offer a critical libertarian analysis of his claim.

Neuroimaging, psychosurgery, deep-brain stimulation, and psychopharmacology hold considerable promise for more accurate prediction and diagnosis and more effective treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Some forms of psychopharmacology may even be able to enhance normal cognitive and affective capacities. But the brain remains the most complex and least understood of all the organs in the human body. Mapping the neural correlates of the mind through brain scans, and altering these correlates through surgery, stimulation, or pharmacological interventions can affect us in (...) both positive and negative ways. We need to carefully weigh the potential benefit against the potential harm of such techniques. This paper examines some of these techniques and explores the emerging ethical issues in clinical neuroscience. (shrink)

Computational complexity theory is a subfield of computer science originating in computability theory and the study of algorithms for solving practical mathematical problems. Amongst its aims is classifying problems by their degree of difficulty — i.e., how hard they are to solve computationally. This paper highlights the significance of complexity theory relative to questions traditionally asked by philosophers of mathematics while also attempting to isolate some new ones — e.g., about the notion of feasibility in mathematics, the $\mathbf{P} \neq \mathbf{NP}$ (...) problem and why it has proven hard to resolve, and the role of non-classical modes of computation and proof. (shrink)

nsights on shared society reflect the nexus between collective actions and durable policy for the common good. The study’s core subject is the deeper understanding of the shared society in theory and practice. It helps overcome conflicting perceptions and divides. The main focus is on reasoning challenged by dynamics in democratic societies. The article aims to highlight its framework avoiding simplistic variations of main theses, but presenting new insights into the applications of this theory. It examines the ontological essence within (...) cross-cutting varieties and dimensions of its profile. The philosophy of shared society is also represented in several practical perspectives. These vectors reflect various motivations and perils as links to practice. These links are: reflections on conflict resolution at municipal level in Germany, electoral participation and vote-buying practices in Bulgaria, EU economic integration and reforms to promote a shared and cohesive living. (shrink)

Summary A pupil of Köhler and von Hornbostel in Berlin, Arnheim published an article in the Musical Quarterly in 1984, where he applied the principles of visual composition to the musical form. In a painting, for example, the forces of visual composition are essential for aesthetic enjoyment; in music, sounds are essential as they are always occurring in time, and this constitutes the main dynamic vector of music. Starting with the tetrachord of ancient Greek music and analysing the relationships between (...) notes in the major and minor scales, Arnheim identifies what in the Western musical tradition represents the basis on which each note must relate: the tonal centre, the attractive motor that determines the perceptual dynamics of musical expression. Two examples, taken from Schubert and Béla Bartók, show us how the structure of the melodic construction is essential in generating different states of mind; Arnheim, however, does not stop at the simple eliciting of an emotion, but situates the musical structure in a more general framework, which refers to perceptual patterns belonging to any sphere, mental or physical, thanks to which we experience our reality. (shrink)

Testing embryonic cells for genetic abnormalities gives us the capacity to predict whether and to what extent people will exist with disease and disability. Moreover, the freezing of embryos for long periods of time enables us to alter the length of a normal human lifespan. After highlighting the shortcomings of somatic‐cell gene therapy and germ‐line genetic alteration, I argue that the testing and selective termination of genetically defective embryos is the only medically and morally defensible way to prevent the existence (...) of people with severe disability, pain and suffering that make their lives not worth living for them on the whole. In addition, I consider the possible harmful effects on children born from frozen embryos after the deaths of their biological parents, or when their parents are at an advanced age. I also explore whether embryos have moral status and whether the prospects for disease‐preventing genetic alteration can justify long‐term cryopreservation of embryos. (shrink)

The Architectonics of Meaning is a lucid demonstration of the purposes, methods, and implications of philosophical semantics that both supports and builds on Richard McKeon's and other noted pluralists' convictions that multiple philosophical approaches are viable. Watson ingeniously explores ways to systematize these approaches, and the result is a well-structured instrument for understanding texts. This book exemplifies both general and particular aspects of systematic pluralism, reorienting our understanding of the realms of knowing, doing, and making.

Teachers in many countries complain that their pedagogic work is impeded by unreasonable bureaucratic demands by government agencies. This paper suggests that historical, institutional and cultural perspectives are needed to understand the processes at work. It draws on Weber’s classic study of bureaucracy, but also makes reference to claims that traditional bureaucracies have been modified in ways that ameliorate their authoritarian character. The central part of the paper examines the attempts of one country (Scotland) to address complaints about excessive bureaucracy: (...) it is argued that they show a limited understanding of the nature of institutional power. In the discussion that follows, a number of critical interpretations are considered: that bureaucracies are, by their very nature, anti-educational; that they undermine ethical consciousness and cause psychological damage; and that enhanced professionalism can serve as a counterweight to bureaucratic tendencies. The paper ends by suggesting that the powerful pragmatic argument that mass, state-run educational systems cannot function without complex administrative structures, should not be used to disguise the fact that they have unintended consequences, some of which tend to subvert their stated aims. (shrink)

uber das Programm der kommenden Philosophie. ZUr Kritik der Gewalt. SChicksal und Charakter. GEschichtsphilosophische Thesen. THeologisch-politisches Fragment.

This paper engages the question ‘Does the consistency of a set of axioms entail the existence of a model in which they are satisfied?’ within the frame of the Frege-Hilbert controversy. The question is related historically to the formulation, proof and reception of Gödel’s Completeness Theorem. Tools from mathematical logic are then used to argue that there are precise senses in which Frege was correct to maintain that demonstrating consistency is as difficult as it can be, but also in which (...) Hilbert was correct to maintain that demonstrating existence given consistency is as easy as it can be. (shrink)

The axiom of transitivity has been challenged in economic theorizing for over seventy years. Yet, there does not seem to be any movement in economics towards removing classical rational choice models from introductory microeconomics books. The concept of rationality has similarly been employed in the cognitive sciences and biology, and yet, transitivity has here not only been shown to be violated, but also rationally so. Some economists have thus responded with attempts to develop alternative theories that give up on the (...) axiom of transitivity. In this paper, I argue that there is a conceptual confusion in this debate that rests on the mistaken idea that there is something like the “one true theory of rationality” that can determine axioms like transitivity to be true or false. Instead, I defend a shift towards a pluralism of concepts of rationality as well as models in which transitivity should play a role depending on the purposes of the model at hand. (shrink)